Haha! This series is getting closer and closer to the big climax. Or at least… the big climax that’s going to close off the first of hopefully many Guin Saga seasons. To be honest, out of all the shows I’m watching right now that are about to end, this is the series that I’m rooting for a sequel the most. With a show focused so heavily on politics, you really NEED lots and lots of episodes to get the best out of it. The same goes with Tytania. Looking back, it just isn’t worth watching if the producers had no intentions to animate the second half of the story.
In any case, this is one of those typical episodes in which the plot thickens, mostly around the Parro revolution. It becomes clear that a lot of the former citizens of Parro have grown rather tired by the Mongol occupation, and while on their own they don’t stand much of a chance (their strategy of rolling inside barrels may have worked for a few soldiers, but they were quickly outdone by the Mongol soldiers), however Naris managed to get them under his control in time, and so they’ll prove to be of a much better use rather than simply Mongol Target Practice.
Speaking of which… I’m surprised that Naris so easily gave up the cover that he was dead. I’m still not exactly sure why he bothered to try and marry Amnelis, though it might have been a move to confuse the enemy and humiliate them. In any case, it’s going to be interesting to see how Amnelis is going to react when she learns of this.
Cuthron (or however you spell that in English), unfortunately ended up dying in this episode, because he was being out-witted by the very same Mongol officer that he was trying to kill. It turns out that he was a traitor in the Mongol army; my memory isn’t exactly clear on this matter, but if I recall correctly he was converted by Rikia when she was taking care of Naris’ fake assassination.
Speaking of which, only when I went to the official site to look up Cuthron’s name I realized the incredible size of the cast of this series. Seriously, it’s a enormous washing-list that just keeps on and on. It’s amazing that so many characters have already passed the screen. Especially considering how we’re only at what? Novel fifteen out of 130? At this rate this show has a good chance of surpassing even Baccano and Saiunkoku Monogatari in terms of its amount of characters… Especially Mister Question Mark intrigues me. Why did the creators bother to put him (or her) up when there’s absolutely nothing known about him (or her).
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
Author: psgels
Konnichiwa Anne – 21
When I read some of windy’s comments, it amuses me that we both ended up liking and disliking the complete opposites in this series. It just shows that there are many ways to look at this series, even though it’s not among the better World Masterpiece Theatres.
I can somewhat understand how the Marysville arc was supposed to be what this series should be about: Anne and her every day life. However, I think that the biggest problem I had with the Marysville arc is that it was a complete rip-off of Emily of the New Moon. Its adaptation, Kaze no Shoujo Emily, was one of my favourite series of 2007, and I really hated seeing it butchered like this, with a lot copied over and just about every good part removed, with the most notable one being Henderson as Anne’s teacher. At least the Thomas arc had its own identity, of a poor family that was on the verge of being broken up due to a drunk husband. It’s a very down-to-earth problem, and I liked that part a lot.
But yeah, I do agree that these parts did take the focus away from what’s really important in this series: Anne. In exchange we got a very nicely developed Thomas family, but as a prequel of Anne of Green Gables, this series fails. I think that I stopped looking at this series as a prequel a long time ago. This simply is a show that just happens to have a lead character with the same name and looks as in Anne of Green Gables. Nothing more, nothing less.
In any case, I thought that this really was a great episode for Anne. I thought that they would again focus on Bert, but instead he simply gets fired and throws his family in disarray. The focus became much more on Anne, who now had to work extra hard because Johanna would end up working continuously in order to be able to support her family. We also see her get mad at her brothers for the first time, which definitely was the most memorable scene in this episode.
For a minute, I was worried that she was indeed going to join Henderson and Eggman as they moved away from town, but thankfully she eventually chooses not to. A very nice build-up to the point at which she in the end is really going to have to leave them. Especially imagining that the second house she eventually ends up in was much worse than the opportunities she has got to live happily as a family.
But yeah, there were parts at which this show was a bit too cheesy again, mostly again around Henderson. I just couldn’t buy that the entire class was crying because Henderson had to leave. I mean, come on. She wasn’t that good of a teacher and she wasn’t at her post for that long either.
Anyway though, I’m very glad that she’s gone now. The good thing about this show is that it seems to be divided into four arcs that are probably going to be entirely different from each other, so if you don’t like one arc you can just wait until the next one and just consider the dull arc as build-up for the good parts. I’m interested where this series is going to go after this, now that it stopped being an Emily of the New Moon rip-off and can start focusing on its own direction again.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Kara no Kyoukai – The Garden of Sinners – Oblivion Recorder Review – 77,5/100
The sixth Kara no Kyoukai movie is called “Oblivion Recorder”. Unlike the fifth movie, it only takes up an hour of airtime, and tells about another supernatural mystery case in which Shiki becomes involved. While it doesn’t match the standard that was set by the movies 3, 4 and 5, it nevertheless is a nice little movie.
In this movie, we learn that Mikiya has a younger sister. This movie shows her, as she tries to solve a murder mystery that took place in her school, helped by Shiki. The storyline this time is simple but effective, and there’s a nice layered mystery behind a seemingly straight-forward murder. The build-up is pretty well done, and overall this makes for an enjoyable movie.
Where this movie fails to live up to in comparison to its predecessors is that its scenario and execution lack polish. Mikiya’s sister turns out to be yet another girl with a brother complex. I dunno, I think that the creators tried to appeal to taboos, but that doesn’t really work when this trope is already used by tons of other anime. And overall, as much as I appreciate that we got to know more about Mikiya this way, as a main character for a KnK movie, she fails to stand out and is among the least interesting ones.
On top of that, the dialogue also feels rushed and uninspired for a movie. There are a number of conversations that clearly lack a bit of polish here and there, and there are quite a few plot-holes left open at the end of it, most of which I don’t think are going to be answered by the seventh movie. This movie simply doesn’t have the deep characters nor the addictive storytelling of the third, fourth and fifth movie.
What it does have, however, is the best CG during an action scene out of the six movies so far. Mikiya’s sister’s magic is very flashy and the creators make really good use of it during the action scenes. As a standalone movie Oblivion Recorder would have been fine, but the standards of the Kara no Kyoukai movies so far have become higher than average after all.
| Storytelling: | 7/10 |
| Characters: | 7/10 |
| Production-Values: | 9/10 |
| Setting: | 8/10 |
Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea Review – 85/100
Okay, so I finally managed to check out this movie. My big fear before I started watching it that, now that he’s almost reached his retirement, Hayao Miyazaki would have lost his touch by now, especially considering how his previous movie (Howl’s Moving Castle) was arguably his least impressive work. Nevertheless, these fears were ungrounded: Ponyo shows that the old master still has plenty of tricks left up his sleeve. And then some.
Miyazaki’s movies that he made for Ghibli can basically be divided into two categories: epic and down-to-earth. With Ponyo, he tries to combine the two by creating a charming little story about a five year old boy who meets a goldfish with magical powers, and yet creates enough opportunities to show off some amazingly creative visuals and animation that you wouldn’t expect in such a down to earth movie. The result really works and it’s become a movie that’s suitable for any age to enjoy.
The animation really shows how much work went into this movie. Even though CG is the norm in today’s anime, Ponyo is entirely drawn by hand, and contains a record number of 170000 hand drawn pictures. This series really shows how much you can do with just animation: in an industry of anime in which the norm is to cut corners, this movie is full of life with an amazing attention to detail in even the slightest moves, and there’s hardly any frame in which something isn’t moving. The amount of eye candy in this movie is also amazing, and even though the art style is simpler than in some of his previous works, the visuals still rank amongst his most impressive.
This movie also excels in its portrayal of five-year-olds. I read somewhere that Hayao Miyazaki lives right next to a kindergarten school or something similar, and so he’s had plenty of opportunities to fully study how little kids behave. Kosuke is a bit timid, but a very likable young lead. This series doesn’t have much character-development and background (only a few side-characters have a serious change of character), but considering the story and situations they were thrown in, they didn’t really need to: it was fun enough to watch them as they were and extra focus to get some character-development or background in would only have gotten in the way of what’s really important.
My problems with this series lies within some of its messages it attempts to teach to kids. With the environmentalist that Hayao Miyazaki is, I expected that he would show the bad implications of major floods. Instead, a flood in this series just appears, puts an entire landscape under water for a few hours and then disappears without ever leaving a trace. Oh, I’d wish that reality were this simple and convenient. Or how about people who’ve lost their ability to walk, and suddenly are rid of their problems due to magic. Yes kids! If you have some sort of incurable ailment, just hope that a person with magic will arrive and wave these problems away!
Anyway, it’s been more than a year now since I watched all of Miyazaki’s major movies. Looking back, his movie that turned out the most memorable for me was Porco Rosso, which probably was his most mature movie. Ponyo, his least mature movie, probably isn’t going to take that place, but yet it is a very charming movie to behold and definitely worth the watch unless you absolutely can’t stand childish stuff.
| Storytelling: | 8/10 |
| Characters: | 8/10 |
| Production-Values: | 10/10 |
| Setting: | 8/10 |
Cross Game – 21
Oh, I love how incredibly subtle this series can be. This episode again was simple slice of life while it developed the various romances around. It’s your average Cross Game episode, but I just can’t get enough of it.
A lot of this episode was spent on Kou vs Mizuki vs Aoba, as Kou kept bickering with Aoba, and get jealous of Mizuki, Mizuki tried very hard to make his advances on Aoba while looking down in a superior way on Kou and Aoba who kept bickering with Kou and never seemed to realize that Mizuki has her eyes on her.
I especially loved the way the creators showed the bond that exists between Kou and Aoba: at the end of the episode, Mizuki invites Aoba to see a movie. Aoba picks a rather romantic movie which doesn’t seem to suit her tastes, and yet while watching it she’s touched by the storyline. I first thought that this reflected the feelings about Kou she might have, but no: it turns out that that was Wakaba’s favourite movie. Yet, in the end it turns out that she forgot about most of the movie aside from one particular scene. Later, we learn that Kou also went to see the movie when he was a kid (along with Wakaba, obviously), and he too only can remember one scene: the exact same one that Aoba just quoted.
They obviously say these things when they’re not together. During the times that they do run into each other, they were constantly trying to out-wit each other throughout this episode, resulting into a bunch of hilarious situations, like Kou mysteriously hanging out at the Four Leaf Clover while Aoba was around (in the end, he was waiting for Aoba’s sister for her napolitan dishes), or the practice match in which Aoba, while often letting people hit her pitch made sure no point made it through, while Kou, who handled the final four innings ended up giving away one point.
In other small things, I’m surprised that a rivalry is developing not between Kou and Azuma, but instead between Azuma and Akaishi, who are both meant to be batters, and yet Akaishi’s track record is far from perfect. The romance between Azuma’s brother and Ichiyou is also developing very nicely.
Rating: ** (Excellent)]]>
DOGS Bullets and Carnage Review – 37,5/100
“David Production may be a new and young animation company, but they’ve really proven themselves so far. They’ve got their own identity already and they’ve produced nothing but well written series. They’re definitely a new company to look out to.”
Yeah, I wish that I could write that right now, but DOGS is so hilariously bad that it’s a miracle that the producers even agreed to release it. It’s basically a 4-episode OVA (based on the DOGS manga apparently), but it’s so badly produced and written that I don’t think that anyone is going to be able to take it seriously.
The biggest of its flaws is its hopeless overacting. Every single character tries to look as cool as possible, but they overdo their coolness way too much. The result is four episodes full of incredibly cheesy and overacted drama whose only merit is that it’s so hilariously bad that you’re bound to have a laugh or two at how ridiculous it is. There are of course also a lot of emo faces that only make things even less believable, considering how little build-up every story has.
Another problem with this show is that it’s based on a much larger manga, and this series does absolutely nothing to hide it. That’s why the four episodes are just a bunch of random chapters animated, without bothering at all to try and fill us in about what’s going on, why things are happening, who the characters are, and they simply cut off when their time is up, leaving a massive amount of plot-holes open.
Of course, it’s not like this series isn’t enjoyable. This OVA is best watched along with a bunch of friends and liquor; it’s a great way to pass an hour. Obviously, that just doesn’t warrant any kind of praise or high review score. The only praise I can give this series is that the art is pretty decent: it looks crisp and clean and while nothing amazing, you can see David Production’s influences. And of course the Engrish curses were awesome.
I know that this series was based on a much larger manga and all, but that’s no excuse. Hitsuji no Uta for example was also based on a large manga, and yet it did succeed in condensing its story into only four episode, with some amazing results. If that series could do it, then why couldn’t DOGS?
| Storytelling: | 2/10 |
| Characters: | 2/10 |
| Production-Values: | 7/10 |
| Setting: | 4/10 |
Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 – 07
Aah, I hate this effect. Do not get me wrong with this entry: this episode still was a really good one, but at the same time I do believe that the creators have jumped the shark a bit and moved away from what made the first five episodes so incredibly good. This effect started at the last episode, but back then I was focusing too much on details that didn’t really matter.
But let me first start with the good parts: it really was a good lesson for Yuki and Mirai this time that they shouldn’t be wandering off at every occasion. Now that they’ve gotten a good night sleep and the initial shocks are gone, they’re starting to get a bit more of their energy back, and so they start to act more child-like. The rain was also nicely preluded with the dark clouds coming up.
As for the robots, they’re an interesting idea, but they could have been made more practical in my opinion. If they were made to scout around for survivors, they should have been made faster and smaller. Otherwise they could have just been replaced by a rescue worker on a bike. Still, it does seem logical to use robots like these if they’ve been sufficiently tested and fail-proof: this way the rescue workers can act more efficiently and don’t have to waste unnecessary energy to search around for survivors, and instead can concentrate on rescuing.
Anyway, my “problem” with this episode was that the creators are trying a bit too hard, which takes away a bit from this series’ realism. And really, Yuki’s sunstroke would have been a great ordeal for the characters to overcome, but it just feels cheap right after Mari succumbed to anemia. It’s nearly like the characters are taking turns in getting sick here. The creators instead should have just focused at the three of them trying to get home.
I realize I’m complaining a lot, but I’m just rather unhappy that the past two episodes didn’t manage to uphold the amazing standards that were set by the first five episodes. It’s in a way like Now and Then, Here and There: the second half there was still really good, but it wasn’t as gut-wrenchingly sad as the first half. This episode also took the focus away from everyone else, in the favour of focusing more on Mirai and Yuki, and while it would have been an excellent episode for most other shows, I just know that the creators could have done better here. The boy with his fascination of robots was also nice and all, but it felt too much like he was reading a script rather than telling about his life.
Rating: * (Good)]]>
Phantom – 21
Oh boy, this series has been nothing but awesomeness since the start of the Tokyo Arc. Sure, it’s true that Cal’s body grew a bit too much over two years, but if you blame puberty it could have happened. It’s not really something to be overly obsessive about, because I don’t think that it really gets in the way of the rest of the series.
Even though this turns out to be the adaptation of a H-game, I was quite surprised with how honest Reiji was about Cal. In your average anime you’d guess that for some bit of extra tension the characters would just keep these secrets from each other, but then again: this series already has enough tension as it is. No need to be melodramatic at all, because the characters have reached the point where they are more than able to carry the series along. Cal busting up the rivalling gang for example, was nothing short of kickass. This does show that Scythe has some sort of strange methods of getting the best potential out of his Phantoms.
I was actually hoping for this episode to delve a bit more into the Cal vs Reiji, but it seems that the creators are still saving this for later. Instead, this episode’s end showed the next best thing: Cal vs Helen. Next episode surely is going to rock!
If the rest of the finale continues to be as good as this, Phantom is definitely going to be my favorite Bee-Train series since .Hack//Sign, and out of the shows that premiered during the past spring season, it’s pretty likely that this series is going to end up as my favourite. Sorry Shangri-La, but this series has simply gotten that good.
Rating: *** (Awesome)]]>
Birdy the Mighty Decode – The Cipher
Hell yeah! I’ve been waiting for this for more than four months, but Birdy the Mighty Decode’s OVA is finally here. While it’s not exactly what I expected it to be, I don’t care. It’s always awesome to see more of your favourite series of the year.
So yeah, basically this episode takes place between the first and the second season, and ties both seasons together. We get to see Capella as she gets picked up by the old hag, we get to see what happened to Nakasugi after the end of the first season, and we get our first glimpse of Natoru, who would become such an amazing character later on. A lot of the time in this episode was spent on slice of life, and Shion had to give a concert at the same place that Nakasugi stayed at, so she paid a little visit to her. There also was some marionette after her because some aliens feared that she still had some traces of Ryunka in her, but that also was more meant to flesh out the setting rather than to create some sort of climax. Still, I don’t care. I’m glad enough to be able to watch some more of this amazing series, and this episode only contributed to it.
It’s great to see how Senkawa developed from the annoying brat in the first season to that likable side-character he became in the second one, and this episode really showed his transition. He’s so much more mature now, and let Shion approach her, instead of going after her himself. Also, I’ve heard people getting annoyed at Arita Shion’s typical voice, but I think it’s hilarious. Especially along with Capella and the old hag, the comedy becomes utterly priceless when the three of them are in the same room.
I’m also intrigued. The final frame showed the following lines. Now, I’m not sure whether that meant the second season or whether it was referring to something else:
“bye-bye
and
To be continued…”
If it turns out to be referring to that “something else”, and that “something else” turns out to be what I think it is: HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: *** (Yes I’m biased!)]]>
Umineko no Naku Koro ni – 08
Oh boy, even more questions are asked throughout this episode, but at least the premise of this series is starting to become a bit clear now. It’s indeed a series very much like Higurashi, but the whole iterations are much more similar and the whole ghost world around it has a much bigger role here than it had in Higurashi. I’m not sure yet whether or not the endings for each arc are going to be the same, but who knows?
In this arc, it was pretty clear that some of the scenes are viewed by ghost Beatrice and ghost Battler, while others aren’t so much and are rather a speculation of how Beatrice would make Battler believe things went. Otherwise I can see no way to explain Beatrice suddenly summoning walking bunnies and two of the seven sins to kill a bunch of people. Also, Battler never mentioned the deaths of Kanon and Jessica even though he was very much trying to explain the deaths of the first six corpses.
Speaking of which, he’s really been reasoning with the assumption that Maria had nothing to do with the murders, but she’s been acting so evil that she’s turning into some sort of reverse red herring. I mean, for a girl with a bipolar disorder who doesn’t seem to think it weird that blood is everywhere, I wouldn’t be surprised if she did turn out to be the killer in the end. A lot of things would make sense if this was true in any case.
In any case, this episode destroys the theory that one of the six people who were murdered first might have prepared a fake body. Instead of Maria’s mother Rosa, Natsuhi got killed off this time, Shannon stayed alive in exchange for Eva and Gouda wasn’t killed in exchange for Hideyoshi. This could mean that Shannon, Rose or Gouda did use the trick of the fake body in the first episode, but this time decided for a different strategy.
Another big difference with the first arc is that the killer showed some of the gold. This is going to bring actually finding the gold as a much more important goal than it was in the first arc. On top of that, the second set of sacrifices is also going to be different this time. Who know, perhaps this arc is going to end in an entirely different way.
Oh, and when discussing this episode: please refrain from mentioning events that happen after this point in the visual novel.
Rating: * (Good)]]>